Interactive video games among multiple players within a social network have become increasingly popular. For example, the assignee of this application is the creator of Bubble Witch Saga™, a popular game that can be played on facebook®. In Bubble Witch Saga, a particular player is faced with challenges of increasing difficulty. A player can engage in an interactive game with other users within his or her social network such that they can play the same Bubble Witch Saga game. When each player logs in to facebook and initiates the Bubble Witch Saga game, he or she will be provided with current information about the other players in the game, such as the status of each player (score, level, etc.), the names of players who are playing at the current time, and the names of players who have recently joined the game. The platform in this situation would be the facebook environment, where each player accesses the game using a web browser through facebook and the game is enabled by a server that communicates with each player's web browser using API's in the facebook environment.
One limitation of the prior art systems is that players can only engage in a common interactive video game if they are using the same platform. At present, it is not possible to engage in a common interactive game from different platforms, such as the facebook environment and an ‘iOS’ environment (an operating system created and operated by Apple Inc. and used by mobile devices including iPhone® and iPad®) and Android® based environments used by other mobile devices. It also is not possible to engage in a common interactive game when a user does not have network connectivity.
What is needed is a gameplay system that can be accessed by users of different platforms. What is further needed is a gameplay system that allows play to continue even when a user has lost network connectivity and to synchronize once the user has regained network connectivity.